TL;DR – Metal Slug Advance is a fairly faithful adaption of the series to Nintendo’s 3rd generation of handhelds (not counting the Game & Watch line) that manages to maintain the shoot em up gameplay the series is known for with little in the way of drawbacks. Unlike the previous portable Metal Slug games on the Neo Geo Pocket Color, Metal Slug Advance also introduces some additional collectables which help to pad out what would otherwise be a fairly short game. Some of these collectables have the ability to impact gameplay in a significant fashion, and one of them is required to unlock a bonus sixth stage which is otherwise hidden from the player. All in all Metal Slug Advance is an enjoyable if challenging game and one that fans of the genre (or Metal Slug series) should take a look into, but I would struggle to recommend it for casual players or genre novices.
Metal Slug Advance is one of those games that I bought on a whim during my youth and which has been languishing in my backlog for far too long. Not only has the store I bought it from long since ceased to exist, but the company that controlled the chain has had to be rescued from bankruptcy on multiple occasions. That’s not to say that I never played it of course, but for whatever reason I was never able to finish the darn thing despite it being an ostensibly short game, and so it sat in a cupboard for years once I’d moved onto the DS and then 3DS. I did try playing it again via an emulator a few years ago, but ended up struggling on the final boss and took a break before life got the better of me and I ended up moving country three times, working in half a dozen jobs and so on. The third time is the charm however, and I’ve finally gotten around to finishing what turns out to be a difficult but surmountable shoot em up experience. Which really shouldn’t be anything to write home about, as this game only has FIVE stages (well 6, but read on for more details) and the first four will only take most players a few hours to beat as the game has unlimited continues.
The catch to using these continues however is seemingly minor at first, but quickly becomes more pronounced the further through the game you play. Essentially as you play through each stage, there are around 16ish prisoners to free and around 16ish cards to collect. Now you won’t be collect all of those cards initially, as some of the cards are required to gather other cards (for example by unlocking hidden routes within the stages). Most of these cards are decorative and don’t do anything, in fact around 60% of them can be described in this way. Similarly, the majority of prisoners you rescue will just give you a healing item or special weapon (which can only be used briefly before it’s ammo runs out) and so the benefit to rescuing them is modest. The remainder of the cards however, provide various bonuses and modifiers which can be extremely powerful. Examples include reducing the damage taken by your controllable vehicles (including the Metal Slug itself) by 50%, doubling the amount of ammo you have for special weapons, or doubling the amount of grenades you start with. With that being said, the catch is that if you use one of those continues during a stage you lose any cards/prisoners you acquired throughout the mission. In other words, to keep your powerful new bonuses you need to be able to beat the entire mission without dying once.
Fortunately unlike other Metal Slug games, you don’t die in one hit and instead have a health bar which enables you to survive multiple blows. Of course nothing is given away for free, as unlike in the arcade or anthology you can’t just enable unlimited credits to let you blitz your way through the game. Instead you’ll need to play somewhat cautiously as while you can survive multiple wounds, healing items are fairly rare and never appear during the boss battles. In addition, the i-frames (invincibility frames) are quite short and as such it’s often only too easy to be hit, become temporarily invincible and then get hit again during the same boss attack or by the same gaggle of enemy grunts. This means that the stages are mostly easy to beat, but tough to master as each stage has 3 or 4 components split up by checkpoints, but you can’t use any of these checkpoints should you wish to gain those permanent buffs. The stages themselves are each inspired by the previous games and many of the enemies, art work and even attack patterns are copied over from mainline entries in the series. This means that you’ll be facing standards rebels, mask-wearing aztec (or inca?) inspired foes, the maggots from MS2’s mummy levels and so much more throughout a single stage. Fortunately all of this holds up well on the humble Gameboy Advance and outside of some of the blood effects and gore, you’d struggle to tell that this wasn’t a straight port of the originals (well of course the stages are a bit different too, but you get what I mean).
One area in which the GBA struggles a bit however is in handling all of those enemies at once. You see, the game does a good job of managing the levels as the camera follows your perspective slightly which lets you see further ahead despite the small screen resolution. This means it’s fairly rare for enemy attacks to appear out of nowhere off-screen. The way the game’s able to do this is that it spawns enemies in slightly ahead of your perspective, but rarely without sufficient time for you to react. Unfortunately the game also spawns in enemies where you’re looking, regardless of whether you’ve already killed them or not. As a consequence it’s possible to fight your way through a section of the stage, then need to jump backwards to avoid an enemy attack, causing new enemies to respawn into the fray. This may have been an intentional design choice, but if it is then it’s a very annoying one as it happens not only across stage transitions but also throughout every stage with there not being a ton of leeway given before retreating results in more baddies popping up. Additionally both enemies and prisoners are prone to despawning, so if you were to free a prisoner from their constraints but then get knocked down to a lower area of the same stage, then that prisoner can disappear until you reload the level. Which requires either beating the stage and starting it again, or losing all progress made thus far. It’s a tedious aspect of the prisoner and card collecting mechanic that holds Metal Slug Advance back a little bit.
As for the levels that you’ll be playing through again and again, they’re generally pretty good. As mentioned earlier they do a good job of blending various assets together from the rest of the series and as such the enemy variety is strong and most stages are just long enough to feel complete without being a total slog to replay for those cards. Generally the difficulty in Metal Slug Advance is easy-enough and I’d say anyone who has played through any mainline Metal Slug game will know what to expect, with one exception. The bosses. Now the first couple of bosses aren’t too bad and in fact I’d say both Stage 1 and Stage 2 are quite easy, lending themselves nicely to a cheeky replay for those bonus cards. Stage 3 is more of a pain and I struggled to get through it to collect some of the power-up cards if I’m being totally honest. Stage 4 is a bit harder but the boss is slightly easier, once you know the patterns and so it’s entirely possible to get through it without too much trouble. Regardless I’d say that getting all of the prisoners and cards in these stages will take some patience, as one death will screw everything up and most of your deaths are going to come from the bosses at the very end of the level. Then you’ve got Stage 5 which is, to put it charitably, a digital haemorrhoid. The stage itself has a ton of replayability as it splits into multiple segments, starting with either a jet vehicle section (or you can eject for a different level) before you start going through the enemy base. This base has a lot of powerful hidden cards within it, but also some dead-ends and so you’ll need to work your way through it many a time to get everything. Especially as some of these cards are will hidden, and will require you to shoot at innocuous props and background items so that you can reveal them (honestly I’d recommend a guide if you’re going to do this). Then once you’ve fought tooth-and-nail through a brutal gauntlet of enemies, you have the worst boss in the game and in my humble opinion one of the worst bosses in the series. In fact beating the 5th boss with continues took me longer than the rest of the game combined. It was so brutal I’m going to include a little guide at the end of this review. Suffice it to say, if you can beat the game you’ve already proven yourself. But to get 100% will require going above and beyond!
Once you’ve cleared through the 5 stages, there isn’t much left outside of the card collecting and prisoner liberating to do. Although there is a bonus 6th stage (albeit without a boss) that contains another batch of cards and prisoners to liberate. The catch is that this bonus stage is quite long, relatively difficult and of course has multiple routes through it so you’ll need to replay it multiple times choosing different routes to get everything (kind of like stage 5 on steroids). The only catch is that to unlock the sixth stage, you’ll need to beat stage 5 without dying as you need one of the stage 5 cards. Honestly it’s a ballache and I would not be surprised if only a modest % of the player base bothered. With that being said I think it’s proof that despite being short, Metal Slug Advance has a surprising of content and on balance it’s a great experience for shoot em up fans or Metal Slug appreciators who are looking for some new content. Between the strong graphics, high levels of replayability and decent performance on the GBA this is a solid game and one that’s great for the right type of player. Those who aren’t looking for a challenge, or are new to shoot em ups should start elsewhere unless they’ve got something to prove. For them, I’d recommend the Metal Slug Anthology as it contains multiple games with the ability to use unlimited credits so you can practice, practice practice until you’re confident enough to beat stages in one go. Then you’ll be ready to get 100% in Metal Slug Advance and save the world, Forever(?)
If you’re still reading, then you’re probably looking for some help with the final boss. God only knows I was, as the endless deaths were brutal and of course getting through the entire stage and the boss without dying is frankly a nightmare. As such I’m going to make a list of tips that I found very helpful for dealing with the final boss of Metal Slug Advance. I’m also going to link a Youtube video of some guy beating the final boss, without any powerups, grenades, etc. You can find that here.
- Pre-battle pro-tip: You can bring a tank into this fight if you go the following route through the enemy base – Go down at the first option, then up every time thereafter. Towards the end there will be a Metal Slug for you to use, but you’ll need to shepherd it through two more segments (slightly easier than it sounds) before you’ll through to the boss. This tank is useful even without upgrade cards as it gives you some extra heath, an unlimited MG while driving it and you can abuse i-frames when entering and exiting it. Alternatively always going up is the shortest route and thus exposes you to the least danger (although there isn’t much to collect).
- Boss attack 1 – The Drones: I HATE these little freaks, my best advice is to use the small window before they spawn to get some shots off at the boss and to then immediately duck down to the bottom area. You’ll be able to jump around 4 times before they start to spawn. If you touch the top of them, you take damage so you want to be below them. They can take around 16 pistol shots or 2 grenades (or a mix) so you need to focus on one. Be very careful that you don’t jump up onto a ledge, as getting down without taking damage is a real hassle. If you can take out one, the other is easy to deal with. The 2nd one you kill drops a Heavy Machinegun pick-up, but it despawns very quickly so try not to kill them when they’re high up in the air.
- Boss attack 2 – The floating lasers: This part isn’t too bad, and while you’ll be tempted to sit it out entirely it offers a great opportunity to do some damage. Just keep an eye on the pattern (generally it alternates per shot from left to right and they go through each side of the two platforms in variation). You’ll want to keep jumping back and forth to give you more reaction time, but you’ll get the hang of this pattern fairly quickly. Just be careful not to waste your MG ammo by jumping behind you then firing, as you’ll shoot behind you. If you’ve started shooting, then your movements will be the same but you’ll keep facing ahead of you – use this to your advantage
- Boss attack 2.5 – At this stage the boss will reuse the laser attack from the Stage 3 boss directly beneath. Do NOT stand there! The platforms will then fall to the ground.
- Boss attack 3 – The reflecting lasers: A very annoying attack to deal with. Before it starts you have a brief window to pour damage onto the boss, take full advantage of this by jumping up and down as the closer you are the less distance your bullets have to travel, meaning the more bullets you can fire off in a short time. Once the attack starts, try to stay directly in the middle and keep firing upwards while jumping over the various shots. You’ll need to move slightly, but generally directly under the bosses weakspot is the best place to be and moving from side to side will result in you getting trapped in either corner. Refer to the video I linked to see a good example of how this strategy works.
- If you do everything right, you should only need to survive these patterns twice before the boss has taken critical damage and starts being on fire. At this point the attack patterns will change, albeit the existing one will continue (so if you do critical damage during the reflecting lasers stage, you’ll have that stage before the next stage is upgraded).
- Boss Attack 4 – The DRONES: Now there are 3 (one spawns after you kill one) of them, and they stagger their shots which sounds like a small change but makes them so much difficult to deal with. Keep focusing on them one at a time, I’d also consider saving some grenades for this section as these drones are surprisingly durable. Personally I used about 5 or 6 grenades on the boss once it started being on fire and saved the rest for clutch moments against these damn drones.
- Boss Attack 5 – Pewpewpewpewpew: This is a very quick two-tier laser attack that hits basically the whole stage, so you’ll need good reaction times to find a sweet spot and to then move quickly from it as the sweet spots are then hit on the second barrage around a second later. If you’ve playing it right, you should have to survive this once (or maybe twice)
- Boss Attack 6 (sort of) – Faster floating lasers: This is the same as the previous attack, but about 50% faster. The technique is the same, but it’s hard to pull off. I’d suggest using this pattern as an opportunity to use up your first 6 grenades before things really get tough.
- Boss Attack 6.5 – That stage 3 laser attack again, it’s unchanged
- Boss Attack 7 – Oh my goodness, more lasers: If you thought the reflecting lasers were bad try this one on for size. You’ll be hit by a barrage of lasers that sweep the stage in a similar fashion to the previous attack. It takes longer, but you won’t have those platforms getting in the way. Again you’ll only need to survive this once (or maybe twice). Unfortunately much like the previous attack there’s no consistent sweet spot and they come in quick so you’ll need to either have plenty of health saved, abuse the tank’s i-frames or just have damn good reflexes.
Basically the challenge with the boss is avoiding all damage during the first half, then trying to finish off the second as quickly as possible. Make full use of the MG drops and then use grenades once it’s already on fire. I’m not going to pretend this is an easy fight by any means, but I was able to overcome it and I have a coordination difficulty so hopefully you’ll be fine. If you’re just going for a casual playthrough, there’s no shame in continuing again and again until you’ve got those patterns down. Hope this helps!